Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang
by The Evil Author
Summary: Part 3 added - Hogwarts becomes a five dimensional maze as Willowmorte and the Ultimate Scoobs penetrate its defenses.
1. Prologue

Title: Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang, Prologue  
  
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author  
  
E-Mail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com  
  
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.  
  
Spoilers: Anything goes  
  
Summary: It's the gathering of the Big Bads.  
  
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their owners who I'm too lazy to list.  
  
"So tell me, Lucius, how does victory taste?"  
  
"This is victory?" Lucius Malfoy croaked as he watched the mushroom cloud rise over what had once been the last refuge of wizarding kind. Only the most powerful of protective charms kept the radiation from touching him. Once Voldemort had taken over the wizarding world, Lucius had assumed that wiping out the muggles was a foregone conclusion. The muggle world's ability to fight back had proved disconcerting.  
  
"Isn't it?" his master laughed. "Isn't it what you and the other Death Eaters always wanted? All muggles and mudbloods are dead now. The only remaining examples of humanity left are all pureblood wizards now. Of course, there aren't enough of them left to perpetuate the human species even if they weren't scattered all over the world. Not to mention that all learning both muggle and magical has kinda gone up in smoke."  
  
"How. how could this have happened, milord Voldemort?" Lucius asked in shock. "How could you have permitted events to spin out of control?"  
  
"Lucius, Lucius, Lucius, events were never out of my control." Glowing red eyes in that beautiful face glinted amusement at him. "And shouldn't you be calling me 'milady'?"  
  
"Forgive me, milo. milady," Lucius apologized, looking away.  
  
"Hmm, and I think I need a new name, too," the Dark Lady mused. "After all, I'm not just Voldemort wearing Willow Rosenberg's body. There's so much more to me than that, now."  
  
***  
  
Dawn was bored. In the eternal void between dimensions, there wasn't much to do. Here she was, a cosmic force to be reckoned with, and she couldn't figure out a way to keep amused. Since Cordelia had left, Dawn had tried mucking with the worlds some more on her own, but the results were kind of iffy. Then she had tried to amuse herself with some of the critters that lived in this void, but that had palled quickly. Then she had tried passive observation of the dimensions, but with an infinity to choose from, picking one to concentrate on wasn't easy.  
  
So Dawn was bored. Bored. Bored. Bo.  
  
Hello. What's this?  
  
One of Dawn's lesser selves was using the power of the Key. And she was doing so in a dimension that she had no business being in. Dawn considered. Cordelia, or at least the Powers that Be, would probably want to know about this. Dawn supposed she ought to call them.  
  
Nah, she decided. They probably already knew about it. Probably.  
  
Dawn settled down to watch.  
  
***  
  
"Mine! My Precious! Mine!" cackled the scrawny figure dementedly over the two corpses. He clutched something possessively to his chest. "Master thought he could keep you my Precious, but no."  
  
"Oh, shut the bloody 'ell up!"  
  
The two arms came from behind unseen, and snapped Gollum's neck like a candy bar. A golden ring dropped from his now dead hands and rolled. As Gollum's corpse was dropped to the ground, the ring rolled towards across the stone surface towards the volcanic pit.  
  
A booted foot stepped in the ring just short of the edge, bringing it instantly to a halt. "Spike! What do you think you're doing?" asked the owner of the foot. "You almost let the goods get destroyed."  
  
"Sorry, Niblet," the vampire replied. "But this wanker's ranting was driving me batty."  
  
"Didn't you used to put up with that kind of thing from Drusilla all the time?" Dawn asked, exasperated. She cautiously picked up the One Ring with a set of tongs and deposited it in a mystically protected box.  
  
"Yeah, well Dru was a lot cuter than this guy," Spike said as Dawn opened a portal to another dimension.  
  
***  
  
"Milady, if I may ask." Lucius began as he and the Lady-who-was-still- trying-to-decide-on-a-new-name apparated onto a sand dune in Egypt.  
  
"Hmm?" The Lady closed to her eyes and sent out a wave of power. The wind whipped up, carrying sand with it. "Go ahead, Lucius."  
  
"What is the point of ruling the world if there's nothing left worth ruling?"  
  
"Ah, well, there is no point," the Lady told him absently. "I'm really not interested in ruling anything anymore." The sand shifted as something big began to rise from below. "I guess it's just the Willow in me, but I find dealing with the petty concerns of even my loyal minions to be boring. So I took a different course to ultimate power."  
  
"What would that be, milady?" Lucius asked.  
  
"Blood magic is ancient and powerful, Lucius," the Lady said fondly as the object she was raising freed itself of the sand. It was a giant black ring, inscribed with strange glyphs in two concentric circles. Seven jeweled chevrons were spaced around the rim. "One death supplies immense power. Imagine what I got from six billion."  
  
Lucius tried. He couldn't. What she was talking about was too mind boggling huge.  
  
"Having doubts?" the Lady asked lightly as she flipped the ring to an upright position. The inner ring of glyphs began rotating. The chevrons began lighting up one by one.  
  
"No, milady," Lucius said quickly. "I am just honored that you chose me as the one servant you kept at your side."  
  
"Are you?" the Lady said, sounding amused. "I would have thought you were smarter than that, Lucius." A ceremonial knife materialized in her hand.  
  
Lucius suddenly discovered that he couldn't move. He had been frozen in place without even noticing that a spell was being cast on him. Only his voice was left to him. "Why?"  
  
""Y'know, I really love that Malfoy hubris," the Lady told him as she began to cut. "I told you. Blood magic is powerful. Why should I waste my own energy when I got you right here?"  
  
As his screams died away, the inner ring of the Stargate stopped spinning. Orange and red flames filled the its center but for the blacker than black slit that vertically split the fire. It looked remarkably like an eye.  
  
"READY, VOLDEMORT?" the burning eye asked.  
  
"Just about," the Lady said, slowly licking the mess off her fingers. "And don't call me that anymore. I've settled on a new name for my new composite self."  
  
"INDEED?"  
  
"Call me. Willowmorte." 


	2. Bizarre at the Bazaar

Title: Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang, Part 1  
  
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author  
  
E-Mail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com  
  
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.  
  
Spoilers: Anything goes  
  
Summary: The Gang goes shopping.  
  
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their owners who I'm too lazy to list.  
  
***  
  
The Watcher was writing up a summary of the little adventure he had just been dragged into. It wasn't everyday that the Time Lord witnessed the death of a god first hand. Some of the energy readings were fascinating, definitely needing further study. This was the purpose of his existence. The Watcher watched and recorded and studied unusual events in the multiverse. Typically, these happened among the dimensions more primitive than his highly advanced people's own. This was mostly because such worlds made up the overwhelming majority of the multiverse.  
  
A thunk from the table told him he was not alone. He looked up.  
  
"Where the heck does a girl get a new wardrobe around here?" Buffy Summers asked. She was seated across from him, leaning back in her chair with her feet propped on the tabletop. Her weapon, the Scythe, was lying across her lap. In regards to her question, the Watcher noticed that she was still wearing the torn and ripped leather outfit she had entered his TARDIS with. Fortunately, she had bathed and cleaned herself earlier even if she still wore primitive animal skins.  
  
It annoyed the Watcher that he had uninvited guests. They had forced themselves on him not long ago subjectively speaking. Due to some great cosmic joke, the Time Lord's current form resembled someone his passengers knew. As near as the Watcher could tell, that was the sole reason he had been conscripted as their mode of interdimensional transportation.  
  
On the positive side, his passengers were uniquely fascinating. Buffy Summers, or this version of her at least, was actually older than he was. A victim of one of the longest time loops on record, she had been sent some twenty thousand years back in time. There the last true demon leaving the Earth planes had turned her into a kind of proto-vampire. Then some primitive human shamans had cut out her heart and used it to empower a line of mystical warriors called Slayers. Her soul had traveled with her heart, and jumped from Slayer to Slayer until the opportunity arose to retake possession of her original body.  
  
"There are any number of clothing fabricators in the guest rooms," the Watcher told her. "Perhaps you are too primitive to recognize and use them..."  
  
"Oh, I found them fine," Buffy interrupted. "And I figured out how to use them. But they only make stuff in tweed."  
  
"It is not tweed," Giles said stiffly. "The fabric is a nanotech based material capable of..."  
  
"It looks like tweed. It feels like tweed," Buffy insisted. "It's  
tweed."  
  
"And this material does not meet your approval?"  
  
"No, it does not," Buffy replied shortly. Then a look of slight embarrassment crept into her face. "Well, except that I made a strap for the Scythe so that I could wear it on my back instead of carrying it everywhere." She held up the strap in question. It was attached to the weapon just above where the axe blade was mounted on the shaft and where the wooden stake was mounted. "But believe you me, I'll replace it with a trendier material as soon as possible," she added quickly.  
  
"Yes, I'm sure you will," the Watcher replied dryly.  
  
"Hey, what's going on?" said another of the Watcher's uninvited passengers from the door that lead to the private quarters. He entered the main hall and sat himself in a chair next to Buffy. He was carrying a tall paper cup with a lid and a straw; he had obviously figured out how to use the food synthesizers. He also was wearing the clothes he had arrived with. His had not been quite as abused as Buffy's had been. Now, his clothing looked almost undamaged.  
  
"Trying to convince Mr. Watcher here to take us on a shopping trip, Xander. I need a new wardrobe that ISN'T tweed," Buffy told him. She looked Xander over. "Hey, how come your clothes aren't all ripped like they were before?"  
  
"Sewing kit," Xander answered, pulling said kit from the depths of his long coat. "You wouldn't believe the number of times I've had to patch my clothes together after a fight."  
  
Xander Harris was fascinating in his own right. He carried the fragment of a god, which rendered him nearly unkillable. Although not possessing much in the way of powers that he could consciously use, Xander was capable of surviving and healing injuries that would have killed his friends. By no means unique, the only way to truly end his existence was for another of his kind - they called themselves "Immortals" - to do the deed. Even then, his fragment and the very essence of himself would be absorbed and live on in the victor. The Immortals would battle each other until they had collected all the fragments in their dimension and became a literal god very much like the one they had just killed.  
  
"Hey, could I borrow that, Xander?" Buffy asked, pointing at the sewing kit. "Maybe I can patch up my own clothes."  
  
"Sure, but I only have black thread," Xander said, handing her the kit. He wore all black. Coat, pants, shirt, boots, body armor, it was all black. Buffy had referred to it as the "Neo" look whatever that meant. It sounded vaguely cultural to the Watcher. "Although I think you'd look great as a sort of negative Cat-woman."  
  
"Hmm, no thanks then," Buffy said, handing the kit back to Xander.  
  
"I prefer the Sheena Queen of the Jungle look any way," Xander replied, grinning.  
  
In response, Buffy swatted Xander on the shoulder hard enough to send him sprawling to the floor.  
  
"Ow! Geez, Buffy," Xander gasped as he got up, arm loosely hanging at his side. "I think you broke my arm."  
  
"It'll heal, won't it?" Buffy asked casually as if she were talking about the weather.  
  
"That's not the point," Xander said, experimentally flexing his arm. Apparently, it was no longer broken. An Immortal's healing rate was phenomenal to those unfamiliar with it. "You gotta be careful with that super strength of yours. What if I hadn't been Immortal?"  
  
"Then I wouldn't have hit you so hard," Buffy said, unconcerned.  
  
"Hey guys. What's happening?" asked the third and final passenger as she walked in from the guest quarters. She sat in a free chair on the opposite side of Buffy from Xander.  
  
"Trying to arrange a shopping spree, Willow," Buffy answered.  
  
"Trying to convince Buffy not to use me as a punching bag," Xander said at the same time.  
  
Willow's eyebrows rose in surprise, but didn't ask for details.  
  
Willow Rosenberg was a self-described witch. She had the ability to draw energy from her environment and shape it into forms dictated by her mind. Willow called the process "magic", a term the Watcher abhorred in private. While Willow's ability wasn't unusual, the amount of power she could channel was immense for a mere human being with only a minor side effect. The side effect was that her hair had changed color to a half white, half black pattern. The white extended from roots and changed to black about two thirds of the way, as if the last third had been dipped in ink. It was a most unnatural though attractive look.  
  
Though physically the frailest of the trio, Willow was in her own manner the most powerful. Buffy was the first to notice the latest example of this power.  
  
"Hey, Wills, where'd you get the new clothes?" she asked.  
  
"Oh, I rearranged the molecules of my clothes with a spell," Willow replied. She was currently wearing a red and green turtleneck sweater and jeans. She looked apologetically at the Watcher. "Tweed didn't agree with me."  
  
"It's not tweed!" the Watcher protested.  
  
"Cool," Buffy said, ignoring the Watcher. "Can you do mine too?"  
  
"Sorry," Willow replied regretfully. "Not a whole lot of energy to draw on in here. After what happened when I changed my clothes, I don't think I ought to do it again."  
  
Ah, that explained the odd power dropouts and alarms earlier, the Watcher thought.  
  
"So what are you up to?" Willow asked the Watcher.  
  
"I was attempting to get some work done," the Time Lord replied irritably. "Although that seems to be a lost cause."  
  
"Huh, I guess that brings us back around to shopping," Buffy said.  
  
***  
  
Atop a tower in the land of Mordor, the Eye of Sauron blazed, a circle of fire divided by an infinitely black slit pupil. The eye gazed across the land, taking in everything. A battle raged just outside Mordor, a battle that was quickly becoming irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  
  
The pupil widened and a small feminine form stepped out of it. Willowmorte turned back to the Eye and seemed to inhale. The Eye lost form and flowed over and into the Dark Lady as she absorbed and assimilated the essence of Sauron into her being. When she turned her attention back to the world, the Eye of Sauron burned on her right breast like a badge.  
  
She tasted the aether. Yes, with the magical resources of this world, ultimate power would be hers. Worlds would tremble before her. Only one component remained. The part of her that had been Sauron had bound his power to a physical object. A silly idea in retrospect, but it seemed clever at the time. All that remained was for her servants to bring it to her and.  
  
Wait.  
  
Something was missing. The object holding Sauron's share of power, the One Ring, was no longer singing its song of temptation into the aether. It wasn't destroyed because the only way to do so would have destroyed Mordor. As Mordor was still here.  
  
Willowmorte's mental voice echoed across Middle Earth, bringing her servants and foes alike to their knees.  
  
"WHERE'S MY RING?!"  
  
***  
  
The place was an anomaly in this dimension. It was flat, empty, and fenced in. It wasn't very big, a square some twenty feet on each side. A single gate led beyond the lot, guarded by a hulking brute in mirror finished armor toting a ridiculously large sword in one hand. The only clue to the nature of the armor's occupant was a red light that bounced back and forth in the helmet's visor. Passersby gave the guard a wide berth.  
  
A TARDIS materialized in the lot and assumed the form of a wooden outhouse. Moments later, the door swung open. The Watcher emerged followed by his three passengers.  
  
"Welcome to the Bazaar of Deva," the Watcher said. "Home dimension of the Deveels. Beyond that gate is the biggest den of con artists, merchants, and so-called business demons you'll find anywhere. They claim that if you can't find it here, it doesn't exist. I'm sure this place will be adequate for your shopping needs. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." He vanished back into the TARDIS.  
  
"What are Deveels?" Xander asked as they headed out.  
  
"The con-artists, merchants, and so-called business demons our friendly neighborhood Giles impersonator mentioned," Buffy replied. "They're easy to recognize. Red skin. Horns."  
  
"Wait a sec," Xander said as a new thought occurred to him. "How do we know that Watcher guy won't just leave us stranded here?"  
  
"I'm sure he won't Xander," Willow said confidently. She pulled a strange, misshapen piece of metal from her pocket. "One of the things about helping to fix the TARDIS is that I also learned how to sabotage it."  
  
They emerged into a crowded thoroughfare. Demons marched back and forth on foot. or slithered on tail, or scuttled, or whatever depending on their physiology. Open-air stalls in front or inside of tents lined the road.  
  
A pedestrian bumped into Xander. It had no hair, four pupiless eyes, and a mass of tentacles where a mouth on a human would be. It wore what looked like a circus clown suit.  
  
"Watch where you're going, Klahd," the critter said, barely stopping to speak.  
  
"Hey, who's a clod?" Xander objected to the demon's back.  
  
"Excuse me," Buffy said, halting a Deveel in a business suit passing by with a grip on his arm that made him wince.  
  
"Ow, lady! Don't squeeze so hard." Willow and Xander looked in surprise. The Deveel's accent sounded a lot like a New Yorker's. Buffy didn't bat an eye. She just shrugged and let go. The Deveel rubbed the spot where she had grabbed him.  
  
"I just want to ask a few questions," Buffy said innocently.  
  
"Yeah yeah, make it quick," the Deveel told her. "Time is money and all that jazz."  
  
"Is it all like this?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Like this open air market thingy," Buffy clarified, waving her hand vaguely. "The whole Bazaar?"  
  
"Yeah, it is," the Deveel confirmed. He looked at them closely. "That's a funny question. You new here?"  
  
"Yes." Willow began.  
  
The Deveel looked over their shoulders at the hulking guard. "And you guys came out of the Time Lords' lot?"  
  
"What of it?" Xander said defensively.  
  
A look of pure greed flashed over the Deveel's face for a second before changing to what might loosely be described as helpful concern. Loosely. "Well, I just might be able to clear some time on my schedule to help you out. For a small fee of course."  
  
"Of course," Buffy said dubiously.  
  
"A fee?" Willow asked, frowning.  
  
"Yeah, a fee." Seeing a blank stare coming from them, the Deveel tried again. "Y'know, I provide services and you provide cash in exchange. C'mon, we're talking Economics 101 here."  
  
"Cash? As in money?" Xander asked.  
  
"Yes! Cash. Money. As in gold," the Deveel said slowly, as if to a small, not too bright child.  
  
"Guys, I don't supposed either of you picked up any spending money from our friendly neighborhood Time Lord did you?" Xander asked the girls. Willow shook her head. Buffy just shrugged.  
  
"You don't have any money?" the Deveel asked, getting agitated.  
  
"I don't suppose you guys take credit, do you?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Credit? No one in the Bazaar takes credit!" the Deveel practically shouted. "You ought to know at least that much. What kind of Time Lords are you guys?"  
  
"Er, we're not Time Lords," Willow answered, taken aback by the Deveel's tirade.  
  
"We just ride around with one," Buffy added.  
  
"Oh, you're one of THOSE," the Deveel sneered. "Klahds!" He turned away and stormed off into the crowd.  
  
***  
  
"Where is he?" Spike growled.  
  
"He'll be here," Dawn replied between bites on her cheeseburger. "Now drink your blood shake like a good vampire."  
  
Dawn and Spike lounged at a table in an outdoor café. Although it was daylight, Deva was one of those dimensions whose sun didn't toast Spike's variety of vampire. The café itself was a place the two visited frequently. Even in Deva, there weren't many places that could serve human and vampire food at the same time.  
  
And like just about any place in Deva, the café was a place where people came to do business. The business was usually of the private, confidential, or illicit variety. Dawn's business currently fell into the last. The locals tended to frown on transactions involving things that could kill them and their customers en masse.  
  
"So where is he, Niblet?" Spike asked again after taking a sip.  
  
"He'll be here, Spike," Dawn said. She grinned at the vampire. "Relax. I won't let the big bad wizard hurt you."  
  
Spike scowled back. "It's not me I'm worried about," he said. "And I don't trust a bloke who takes to wearing ladies' footwear, especially when he can sling some hefty fireballs."  
  
"Then it is perhaps a good thing that I do business with Miss Summers, is it not?" said an elderly man who was suddenly sitting with them at their table. He hadn't walked up and sat down. One instant he wasn't there, the next he was sitting with them. What was even more impressive was that his appearance hadn't disturbed the air or let off any pretty light effects. "And I'll have you know that being magical, the Ruby Slippers change to fit the wearer. They don't look like ladies' footwear anymore."  
  
"Hey, Professor," Dawn greeted the newcomer. She wasn't fazed by his sudden appearance. He had done this before. The wizard was dressed in purple robes and had a beard so long that it reached the floor even when he was standing up. "How's the school?"  
  
"Quite well, quite well," the wizard replied. "Although Fudge has temporarily evicted me from my job as Headmaster. Why, he believes I am using the students to forge my own private army."  
  
"Oh, so the fat bloke's finally catching on, Dumby?" Spike asked.  
  
"Indeed he has, and don't call me 'Dumby'," the wizard said, pointing a wand at Spike. "Avada Kedavra." There was a flash of green light. Spike slumped forward, his face plopping into his blood shake.  
  
"Professor Dumbledore," Dawn said in exasperation. "We're in public."  
  
"Sorry my dear. Must keep up the practice you know," Albus Dumbledore replied. "Even though I do have a plan to regain the Ministry's good graces, I won't be playing the kindly old wizard forever."  
  
Spike woke up and jerked his face out of the remains of his shake. "Bloody hell!" he exclaimed as he grabbed a napkin to wipe his face off.  
  
"To business then," Dumbledore said, ignoring Spike. "You have the Ring?"  
  
"Yep," Dawn said, nodding. A brilliant green pinpoint appeared, hovering above the tabletop. It opened briefly into a small portal through which the One Ring could be seen before closing again. "Got my money?"  
  
"Of course, I new you could do it," Dumbledore replied, smiling at the brief whiff of power that had streamed through the portal. He waved his wand and a leather briefcase materialized on the table. The lid flipped up of its own accord revealing neatly racked rows of gold coins.  
  
"Spike, count the cash," Dawn said, not taking her eyes off the wizard. "No offense, Professor."  
  
"None taken."  
  
***  
  
"Y'know, I've heard alot about the Bazaar of Deva over the centuries," Buffy said as they strolled along, "but I've never actually been here before. It's kinda disappointing actually."  
  
"Why's that?" Willow asked, gawking at the sights.  
  
"I heard that this was a fabulous place where you could buy anything,"  
Buffy told her.  
  
"And isn't it?"  
  
"Wills, it's a flea market," Buffy said, her distaste betraying her California valley girl roots. "One big, dimension-wide flea market!"  
  
"But what a flea market!" Willow enthused. "Take these tents for instance. I'm pretty sure that each and everyone of them has a dimensional portal built into them."  
  
"So what? Call me spoiled, but for my shopping pleasure, I want malls and department stores," Buffy groused. "Do you have any idea how long I had to wait for humanity to invent those things?"  
  
"I didn't know many Slayers went shopping," Willow said quietly.  
  
Buffy paused in the middle of traffic. She suddenly realized that the memory lanes that she was talking about were that of her "bad" side, the demon that had run around in her body for the better part of twenty thousand years. The creepiness of that was disconcerting.  
  
"Not to be a total downer or anything, but you guys do realize that we're in the interdimensional capital of commerce, right?" Xander asked. "And since we don't have any of the local currency, we are effectively flat broke?"  
  
"I suppose we could resort to armed robbery," Buffy mused aloud, shaking off her melancholy.  
  
"I think the locals might object," Willow pointed out.  
  
"It's not like they could stop us," Buffy said.  
  
"Hey, we're supposed to be the good guys," Willow objected, unable to tell if Buffy was serious or not. "We're not supposed to go around hurting innocent demons and taking their stuff."  
  
A passing troll ran into Xander and barreled on by. "Outta my way, Klahd!"  
  
"I dunno," Xander muttered. "But if one more of these guys calls me a 'clod', armed robbery is gonna be the least of their worries."  
  
"Xander's got a point, Buffy," Willow said as they started back down the street. "What are we going to do for money?"  
  
"Hey, maybe we could get a job," Xander suggested.  
  
"A job?" Buffy echoed, frowning. When was the last time she had a paying job in any incarnation? She couldn't remember.  
  
"But what could we do?" Willow asked.  
  
"Well, duh, we took down a god," Xander answered. "That's gotta qualify us for something."  
  
Buffy froze again. Willow and Xander bumped into her back.  
  
"Buffy, what's wrong?" Willow asked.  
  
"There's a vampire nearby," Buffy answered, unslinging the Scythe from her back. She turned and stalked down another lane.  
  
***  
  
Willowmorte stood at the lip of the volcano over the three corpses. Her eyes were closed and magical senses extending to caress virtually every atom nearby in an attempt to divine what had happened here.  
  
Reading the dead brains was useless. The two hobbits knew nothing. They had been dead, killed by the wretch Gollum. Gollum himself had been attacked from behind and not seen his assailant. It was outrageous that her minions had let these three get this far with her Ring, but that was one of the reasons why Willowmorte had given up on ruling anything.  
  
There, a trace resonance of something that wasn't left by the corpses. No, there were two such resonances. One belonged to a vampire, which was surprising. There were no vampires in Middle Earth. The other had the resonance of the Key, which kind of explained how a vampire got here. It only took a few more minutes to confirm the exact identities of the thieves and to trace their trail to the next dimension.  
  
Being miserly about expending her own internal store of power, Willowmorte drew power from the volcano below to open a portal. The Eye of Sauron flowed along her arm to her fingertip and then expanded into the air. As she stepped through, she promised herself to really hurt Spike and Dawn when she caught up to them.  
  
***  
  
"Ah, the One Ring," Dumbledore breathed, opening the little box that held the powerful artifact. "Thank you, Miss Summers."  
  
"Hey, no problem," Dawn said as Spike hauled the box through a portal she had opened. The portal led to a private vault of hers that was accessible only by the power of the Key. "If you want us to steal any more super magical objects, just let us know. You know where to contact us."  
  
"Of course." Dumbledore frowned as Dawn's portal closed up and vanished. "Are you expecting company, Miss Summers?"  
  
"No," Dawn answered, puzzled at the question. "Why do you ask?"  
  
Later, Dawn would marvel how fast things happened.  
  
A familiar blonde appeared out of the crowded street, waving a wicked looking axe. But it couldn't be her, Dawn thought in shock. She's dead!  
  
"Spike? Dawn?" the blonde said, running right up to them. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"Buffy? You're alive?" Dawn gasped out.  
  
"Slayer?" Spike said at the same time.  
  
"Ah, perhaps I should leave." Dumbledore began, standing up.  
  
A small explosion interrupted him as a column of fire erupted from a nearby empty patch of ground. From it stepped what looked like Willow. But this Willow wore a black, skin tight cat suit, had black hair and glowing red eyes. As Dawn watched, some kind of burning badge appeared on Willow's left breast. Those glowing red eyes locked on Dawn. Willow looked cranky.  
  
"Dawn! You stole my." Scary Willow paused, her blazing red eyes swiveling to the box in Dumbledore's hand then up to the wizard face. "Dumbledore?"  
  
"Tom?" Dumbledore replied, startled. Dawn had never seen the old guy this surprised before.  
  
Before anyone could do anything, the next surprise arrived. Xander and yet another Willow - this one dressed normally and having odd black and white hair - appeared out of the crowd behind Buffy.  
  
"Buffy, what's go." the second Willow began. Then she spotted her double.  
  
The two Willows studied each other for what seemed like forever. Then they spoke as one.  
  
"Oh, poop." 


	3. Face off

Title: Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang, Part 2  
  
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author  
  
EMail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com  
  
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.  
  
Spoilers: Anything goes  
  
Summary: It's super witch vs. super witch while a wizard makes off with the prizes.  
  
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their owners who I'm too lazy to list.  
  
Power wafted through the air of the Bazaar of Deva like an unseen fog bank. It poured down the crowded streets flowed into open tents. Those individuals with even a minimum of magical training could feel it. Magical detection devices primarily intended to spot magic using cheaters and thieves began going off one after the other in an expanding ring.  
  
Vic the Vampire, late of the dimension of Limbo, was meeting a client in the shade of his stall when he felt it. He marketed himself as a wizard for hire, and business was picking up since word had spread that the Great Skeeve had retired. Still, a lot of demons were leery of hiring a vampire.  
  
When the wave of power rolled over him, it almost knocked him flat. Vic came from a magic poor dimension. Having this much hit him was like hitting a desert camel with a tidal wave. When he recovered, he switched to second sight to see what was with Deva's magic. What he saw terrified him.  
  
Whatever was going on was happening miles away. Someone somewhere was drawing in vast quantities of power from the local ley lines. What Vic was feeling was spill off from the effect, since no use of magic was completely one hundred per cent efficient. Whoever was doing this was drawing so much power that the ley lines were visible bending towards the super magician. He could actually see the magical aura of the guy or girl from here.  
  
And then Vic realized it wasn't one person doing all this. There were two of them.  
  
***  
  
As she drew upon this world's energy, Willowmorte assessed the people arrayed before her. She had mentally labeled them the Opposition.  
  
First there was Albus Dumbledore, or at least a version of him. He was powerful, but Willowmorte was more powerful now. The component part of her that had once been Voldemort had always avoided tackling the older wizard head on. Dumbledore had been more powerful than Voldemort in magic even if he held to some weak philosophies. As Willowmorte, her combined self had squashed the old guy easily. The Dumbledore here was a little stronger than the one Willowmorte had destroyed, but she still overshadowed him. The look in Dumbledore's eyes showed that he knew it too. But he also held her Ring in his hand.  
  
Then there was Spike. Willowmorte dismissed him almost immediately. He was the same soulless vampire as the one she had known. Spike was no threat to at all, not by himself at least.  
  
Next was Dawn. Willowmorte could sense the power of the Key in her. That power was active, under Dawn's conscious control. In her reality, Willowmorte's Dawn had escaped her by ending the spell that had made her, dissolving the power of the Key until it was more effort than it was worth to reassemble it. Here, Dawn was still whole. Willowmorte looked forward to assimilating the Key's power.  
  
Willowmorte didn't know what to make of Buffy. She got the impression of extreme age behind those youthful looks. And there was immense power both physical and spiritual in Buffy. The latter concerned Willowmorte because she couldn't tell what powers this gave Buffy.  
  
Xander was also a mystery. His aura was wrapped around him like a bubble, invisible to Willowmorte's magical senses until she was immersed in it. Even then, it seemed to keep trying to slide beneath her notice. Xander's power was unlike anything in the experience of her three lives. All that Willowmorte could tell was that Xander's power was mostly dormant. and that it would be pure idiocy for her to wake it up. Perversely, this actually made him very attractive to her, awakening that buried high school crush.  
  
But the real threat to Willowmorte was her other self. Willow - she was pretty sure the other was just Willow Rosenberg - was drawing in almost as much power as Willowmorte was. Willow's magic wasn't black like Willowmorte's, but it wasn't white magic either. It was more of a combined mottling of the two in a sort of TV static pattern; something Willowmorte would have sworn was impossible. That power was even reflected in Willow's hair, which was half black and white.  
  
Although Willowmorte was sure she was stronger than her double, she wasn't that much stronger. In a straight up fight between them, the winner would be determined more my luck, ruthlessness, and skill than sheer magical might. To even the odds, Willow obviously had allies in Buffy and Xander. Dumbledore would throw in with them having recognized that part of Willowmorte had once been his nemesis. The odds did not look in her favor.  
  
Willowmorte began to reconsider her stance on minions. Having some cannon fodder would have come in handy right about now.  
  
***  
  
Saying the situation was tense was an understatement. Buffy hadn't studied much in the way of magic in her long life, but she couldn't help but pick up a few things. For example, she could tell that both Willows were drawing in enough power combined to nuke a major city. And they were ready to go toe to toe with each other. The locals could see the same; the streets of the Bazaar had emptied amazingly quickly.  
  
This new Willow was giving off dark vibes like there was no tomorrow. Buffy was of two minds about this. On the one hand, she felt both sad for that Willow going dark. At the same time, she also felt like rooting for Willow power. But if it came down to it, Buffy would back "her" Willow in a fight.  
  
"Okay, I'm not unreasonable," Dark Willow said after a few moments of silence. She had obviously been sizing up them up and not liking the results. "If I can just get my Ring back, I'll just be quietly on my way."  
  
"Ring? What ring?" their Willow asked.  
  
"Hey, it's not your Ring," Dawn jumped in. Seeing her sister alive again stirred sentimental feelings inside Buffy. "The One Ring belonged to some Evil Overlord guy. Emphasis on GUY."  
  
"Which you stole," Dark Willow pointed out. When next she spoke, the burning badge on her chest pulsed in sync with her voice, which shifted octaves into something decidedly male. "AND THE 'EVIL OVERLORD GUY' IS PRESENT."  
  
"Dawn, have you been a bad girl?" Buffy asked.  
  
"What? No, I. We just steal evil dark magical thingamabobs from bad guys for uh, safekeeping," Dawn said quickly. "Yeah, that's it, safekeeping."  
  
"We have?" Spike said. Dawn glared at him. "Oh! Too right we have!"  
  
"So where's this big bad ring?" Xander asked.  
  
In answer, both Willows turned to look at the old guy. Dark Willow had called him something Buffy hadn't quite caught. Double Door? Dummy Door? It was something like that.  
  
"You may all rest assured that the One Ring will be quite safe with me," the old geezer said, his voice barely above a whisper yet still audible to everyone. "After all," He placed a hand on Dawn's shoulder displaying a gold band wrapped around his middle finger for all to see, and clicked his heels together three times, "there's no place like home." The old guy and Dawn vanished into thin air.  
  
"Dawn!" Spike cried in shock.  
  
Dark Willow just cursed, incidentally melting the café's plastic tables.  
  
***  
  
"Hey, did you just kidnap me?" Dawn asked after she and Dumbledore had appeared on the edge of a lake. In the distance, a castle loomed above the lake.  
  
"I prefer to think of it as rescuing a damsel in distress," Dumbledore replied. "Unless you prefer the company of the lady with glowing red eyes and enough power to flatten cities?"  
  
"Willow? She wouldn't hurt me. I think," Dawn said.  
  
"Ah, but it's not just your friend Willow there," Dumbledore told her. "I saw my former student, Tom Riddle in her as well as the former owner of the One Ring. Neither are - or should I say were? - nice men."  
  
"Men? In Willow?" Dawn's imagination conjured up a scary image. "Whoa."  
  
"In any case, I wish to hire you for another job," Dumbledore continued.  
  
"Um, okay. What is it?"  
  
"I rather expect your friend Willow to follow us," Dumbledore said. "Both of them in fact. They'll try and take the Ring back. I intend to stop them. But I need your help to prepare a defense."  
  
"Only if the price is right," Dawn hedged.  
  
"Of course," Dumbledore said, smiling paternally. "We can do that while we go along. First, can you open a portal to Hogwarts?" He pointed to the castle. "The magic here prevents apparating on the grounds and we need to move as quickly as possible."  
  
"No problem," Dawn said confidently. "That'll be fifty of. what do you call those gold coins of yours again?"  
  
***  
  
"What's she doing?" Xander asked, looking at the "other" Willow. His maleness noticed that she looked really hot wearing what looked like sprayed on black latex. On the other hand, that trick with the voice was way creepy. Her eyes were closed.  
  
"My skanky evil twin is trying to figure out where Dawn and that other guy teleported off to," his Willow replied. Her eyes were also closed. "I'm trying to do the same. Now shush."  
  
Disgruntled at the brush off, Xander moved over to Buffy. Buffy had moved off to the side to question Spike. Or he assumed that was her original intent.  
  
".and what were you thinking?" Buffy concluded, obviously coming to the end of a rant.  
  
"Keeping my promise to you," Spike replied.  
  
"What promise?"  
  
"I promised to keep the Niblet safe for you," Spike explained. "Seeing as how you died and all."  
  
"Stealing dark magic artifacts is safe?" Buffy said in disbelief.  
  
"Well, they weren't always dark," Spike continued. He smiled fondly. "Hell, they weren't even always magical. Or even old. They just had to be valuable and locked up. URK!"  
  
"YOU TOOK MY SISTER ON A LIFE OF CRIME?" Buffy shouted, strangling the vampire with one hand.  
  
"Urk!"  
  
"Buffy, he can't answer without moving air over his vocal cords," Xander said reasonably, putting a hand on Buffy's strangling arm. "You can kill him after you learn everything."  
  
Buffy didn't let go, but she did ease up on the pressure.  
  
"Didn't take 'er," Spike choked out. "Her choice. Niblet's. boss."  
  
Buffy let go. Spike fell down into a chair. "Why would Dawn choose this?" Buffy asked quietly. "Why'd you let her?"  
  
"You were dead, Buffy, jumping off Glory's tower and all. Dawn, she didn't want to stay in Sunnydale," Spike answered, rubbing his neck. "Ow, you've gotten stronger. Almost thought you were gonna squeeze my head off."  
  
"It can still happen," Buffy replied. "How could you let this happen?"  
  
"I promised to keep her safe, not be her conscience," Spike told her, getting to his feet. "Kinda hard to be the latter considering my lack of a soul and all. Besides, Niblet's got a knack for breaking and entering even without the Key powers."  
  
"Found her," the other Willow sang, her eyes popping open in a blaze of red glory. Moments later, she was gone in a pillar of fire.  
  
"Willow," Buffy said too calmly, turning to their Willow, "tell me you know where Dawn went off to."  
  
"Sorry, Buffy, haven't found her," Willow replied. She smiled. "But I do know where my evil twin went."  
  
"How's that?" Xander asked.  
  
"Planted a magical tracer on her when she wasn't looking," Willow explained. She pulled out the gizmo she had taken from the Watcher's TARDIS. "Now we just need to get a ride to where she went off to."  
  
"Hey, I'm coming too," Spike interjected.  
  
Willow nodded and spoke a word that impressed itself into reality.  
  
TRANSPORT.  
  
***  
  
"You sure it's just one drop you need?" Dawn asked dubiously, examining the knife in her hand.  
  
"One drop is more than enough, Miss Summers," Dumbledore replied, leaning back in his chair in the Headmaster's office. His mind was elsewhere, expanding to become one with the school. Magic was soaked into every stone of Hogwarts, constantly adjusting the structure of the castle to the wants and needs of the occupants. The school was almost alive in a way, with the Headmaster serving as the brain. "Whenever you're ready."  
  
"Okay, here goes nothing," Dawn murmured, pricking her thumb. Redness welled out. Dawn let a drop fall onto a carved statue of the Castle and its surrounding grounds.  
  
This was ancient magic of several orders. There was the immense power of the Key in that single drop, enhanced by blood magic. There was voodoo in the representation of Hogwarts. And then there was the One Ring.  
  
As the drop of blood hit the model castle, in changed into a brilliant green light that suffused the statue. Likewise, green light began to outline every individual stone throughout the real Hogwarts. Dumbledore placed his Ring hand on the glowing representation. Then he began to speak.  
  
"One Ring to rule them all."  
  
Throughout the school, everyone both student and teacher alike came stopped what they were doing. Most of what they were doing was panicking at the changes being wrought on the school.  
  
"One Ring to find them."  
  
As his senses expanded, Dumbledore noticed that neither Potter nor that Umbridge woman was on the grounds. A number of Potter's friends were missing as well. Rifling through a number of minds, he discovered that they had all vanished into the Forbidden Forest.  
  
"One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."  
  
There! The alternate version of his former student had entered the grounds. The binding spell of the Ring attempted to seize her, but she resisted successfully. That was expected. He sent her a greeting party.  
  
***  
  
In the void between worlds, Dawn frowned. Her view of her lesser self had just been filled with static. She couldn't see her anymore. But that couldn't have been Dumbledore's intention. It felt more like a side effect.  
  
So what happened?  
  
***  
  
"Ah, you're back," the Watcher said sourly as the gang walked into the TARDIS. "And I see your number has grown by one. I noticed your grotesque display of power earlier. Are you finished with scaring everyone?"  
  
"Yeah, we love you too," Xander replied sarcastically.  
  
"We need you to get you to get us to these coordinates," Willow announced, waving her hand. Her hand trailed sparkly lights that arranged themselves into a series of arcane figures.  
  
"How did you learn our coordinate system?" the Watcher asked. "And why should I take you?"  
  
"What, do you think I was just making myself new clothes last night?" Willow asked.  
  
"As for why you should take us," Buffy added, "we have to go and rescue a version of my sister from a couple of darker than dark witch and wizard."  
  
"You sister," the Watcher echoed, not moving to help.  
  
"My sister. The Key," Buffy clarified.  
  
"The Key?" The Watcher blanched, realizing the implications.  
  
As if in answer, a green pinpoint of light appeared above the central table. It hovered there, bobbing slightly.  
  
"You guys might want to hurry," said the light in a familiar voice. "'Cuz something really weird is going on over there."  
  
Everyone stared.  
  
"Yes, definitely the Key," the Watcher murmured, after a glance at an open book.  
  
"Dawn?" Spike asked.  
  
"Yep, that's me," the light replied.  
  
"Wait a minute," Xander said slowly. "What version of Dawn are you supposed to be?"  
  
"Every version," Dawn the pinpoint replied.  
  
***  
  
As Willowmorte approached the Hogwarts, the castle began to glow. She could feel ripples of power radiating out. Dumbledore was doing something, but she couldn't tell what. Whatever it was certainly involved using the key.  
  
It annoyed her to have to actually walk up to the castle. While Willowmorte was sure she could crack the castle's anti-apparition defense, she was also certain that it would take too long or too much energy to do so. She had to save as much time and power as possible. Willowmorte was certain that her goody-two-shoes twin was on her trail.  
  
Willowmorte felt the power of the Ring reach out and attempt to command her. It failed. Part of her was Sauron, the being who had originally forged the Ring. She would not and could not be commanded by her own trinkets. It was odd that Dumbledore, normally the bastion of holier- than-thou, using the darker aspects of the Ring so soon. Willowmorte wondered how different this Dumbledore was from the one she had known.  
  
Entering the courtyard, Willowmorte was greeted by what had to be the entire population of Hogwarts blocking her way. It was immediately obvious that they were under the power of the Ring. They also all had their wands drawn and pointed at her.  
  
"Is this the best you have, Old Man?" Willowmorte shouted contemptuously. She was sure Dumbledore could hear her. "What are they going to do? Hex me with pimples? Walking warts maybe?"  
  
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" the entire crowd chanted.  
  
Willowmorte rocked back as her shields bore the brunt of hundreds of instances of the forbidden Death Curse. They all hung suspended in midair in front of her, like smoking green Christmas decorations. Mass mind control. Forbidden curses. This Dumbledore was beginning to look decidedly dark. She was actually starting to like him.  
  
"Oh, very nice," Willowmorte laughed. "My turn now." She took a step forward and called power to her. All the death curses started collecting together in her hands. "Say goodbye to your." Her stomach lurched as reality seemed to shift around her.  
  
Correction. Reality didn't seem to shift. It actually did shift. The courtyard was different now. The courtyard was empty now except for a red haired Willow Rosenberg busily snogging a girl that looked like one of Potter's friends. Willowmorte had accidentally stepped into an alternate reality.  
  
So THAT was what Dumbledore had been doing with the Key. 


	4. Bleeding reality

Title: Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang, Part 3  
  
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author  
  
EMail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com  
  
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.  
  
Spoilers: Anything goes  
  
Summary: Hogwarts becomes a five dimensional maze as Willowmorte and the Ultimate Scoobs penetrate its defenses.  
  
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their owners who I'm too lazy to list.  
  
"Professor, I don't feel so good," Dawn said as she sank into a well- cushioned seat.  
  
"Have a rest, Miss Summers," Dumbledore said comfortingly. "You've done enough for me."  
  
"Thanks," Dawn said sleepily. "Maybe I should just go home, now."  
  
"No, please stay. This is the safest place in Hogwarts at the moment," Dumbledore said. He chuckled. "After all, you're supplying the power for defenses, not to mention my OTHER project."  
  
Dawn didn't reply. She had passed out.  
  
***  
  
"Oh, dear, this is bad," the Watcher commented.  
  
"What's wrong?" Willow asked.  
  
"We have arrived at our destination," the Watcher answered. "Nearby, there is a localized breakdown in dimensional barriers being caused by the anti-dimensional energies of the Key."  
  
"So what does that mean?" Buffy asked.  
  
"It means bits and pieces of various parallel realities have begun to mix together," the Watcher explained. "People and objects of different realities are being mixed together. But it looks controlled. If I am reading this correctly, only people and objects originating from the dimension holding the source of the disturbance are actually being transposed."  
  
"Huh. Sounds like the Bleed," Spike commented.  
  
"The what?" Buffy, Willow, and Xander chorused.  
  
"Don't you guys remember?" Spike asked. At their blank looks, he continued. "It was before you jumped off Glory's tower, Slayer. The First Evil and Ethan Rayne dragged us into a bloody death match. We wound up bopping back and forth between our reality and the First's personal dimension of horrors and so did other side. You telling me you all don't remember?"  
  
"Nope, sorry," Buffy said. "Didn't happen in my reality."  
  
"Or mine," Willow said quietly.  
  
"Nada here," Xander added.  
  
"Wait a minute," Spike said slowly. "You're all from different parallel realities?" They all nodded. "Bloody hell!"  
  
"Be that as it may," the Watcher broke in, "the term 'Bleed' is appropriate. In this case, major hemorrhaging might be a more apt term. If this continues unchecked, the dimensional warping could tear apart all the planets in all the connected dimensions."  
  
"Right then, that would be our job," Buffy said businesslike. "Where's Dawn?"  
  
"I believe the Key would be at the center of the disturbance," the Watcher stated.  
  
"No, I mean the other Dawn," Buffy clarified. "The one doing the Tinkerbell impression?"  
  
"She had to depart," the Watcher answered. "We are too close. Her presence would simply accelerate the collapse."  
  
***  
  
After draining her alternate self and Potter's friend of their magical energy, Willowmorte left them lying unconscious on the ground. She could have, perhaps should have killed them, but something inside her rebelled against the idea. They were no threat anyway, and Willowmorte was in a hurry.  
  
Reaching out with her mystical senses, Willowmorte sensed the discontinuities in the fabric of space and time. There were a lot of them, and they were constantly shifting connections. But by simply following the traces of Key's energy signature, she was able to locate the - portal was the wrong word - rift back to the dimension she wanted. A little magic and the rift was locked on that reality long enough for Willowmorte to cross back.  
  
Stalking twenty feet down a mostly empty corridor, she stepped back into the day-glo version of Hogwarts, ignoring what appeared to be Snape and Potter getting it on as she left. The mind controlled students and staff were nowhere to be seen.  
  
"Cute, Old Man," Willowmorte sneered at her unseen foe. "Do you think this parlor trick is gonna stop me?"  
  
"Oh no, Tom," Dumbledore's mental voice returned. "It doesn't have to stop you. It just has to slow you down long enough."  
  
"And how will it do that, Old Man?" Willowmorte asked mockingly. "I can sense where the dimensional rifts are."  
  
As if in response, the flagstone floor dropped and folded away out from under her. Willowmorte dropped a couple feet, and then halted herself with a quick levitation spell. She sensed another rift below, rapidly shifting connections through a myriad number of alternate realities.  
  
"You gotta do better than that, Old Man!" Willowmorte laughed.  
  
The whole ceiling dropped down and smacked her into the rift.  
  
***  
  
"Now there's something you don't see everyday," Willow said awed.  
  
"Not unless you watch anime," Xander added.  
  
The castle Dawn was being held in was busy rearranging itself. Everything from individual stone blocks to whole wings were moving around of their own accord. As they watched, a tower sank down while two of its sides folded outward like two spreading arms. Every seam and crack radiated the emerald glow of the Key.  
  
"All right, everyone," Buffy said as the three of them strode into the castle. Spike hadn't come along because it was still daylight out. Unlike Deva, this sun would burn him. "As long as we stick together, we should be all right. Willow, can you tell where Dawn is? Willow?"  
  
Buffy looked around. Willow and Xander had disappeared. A few steps later, and Buffy suddenly found herself herself bathed in darkness with only the night time sky to light her way. She also found herself in the middle of a few thousand dementors.  
  
"Well, damn," she commented.  
  
***  
  
"What are you doing here?" hissed the vampire wearing Willow's face. In the well-shaded corridor of the castle, the vampire had shoved the witch up against a wall. "And what happened to your hair?"  
  
Given that her vampire double was more surprised to see her than surprised by her existence, Willow quickly concluded that this must be a version of the vamp Willow that she and Anya had summoned years ago. Willow shook her head. Following that convoluted line of thinking was giving even her headaches.  
  
"Er, just lost," Willow apologized, wondering how she got here. "So this is your home reality? I would've expected more sounds of the pain and torment variety."  
  
"No, this isn't my home reality," vampWillow retorted. "You messed up that spell and sent me here instead. And DON'T tell anyone you meet that I'm a vampire."  
  
"Why, so you can suck them dry?"  
  
"No, they." VampWillow let Willow go. The vampire actually looked away and fidgeted in embarrassment. "They're my friends."  
  
Willow goggled at her. VampWillow actually seemed to be serious. Reaching out with her mystical senses, Willow didn't detect a soul, but she sensed a geas had been laid on the vampire. As Willow probed, she heard an echo of her own voice from long ago, "Be nice!"  
  
"Okay, I won't tell," Willow reassured her double.  
  
"Thanks," VampWillow said. She glanced over Willows shoulder at something behind her. "Look out!" she exclaimed, shoving Willow away.  
  
A foot thick bar of black and red energy passed through the space Willow had occupied just moments before. It also passed through VampWillow, dusting her. Willow had just enough time to see that the source was her other double, the one with the glowing red eyes that she had been chasing.  
  
Then the world changed around her again.  
  
***  
  
Willowmorte cursed. Her most dangerous opponent - her alternate self - had narrowly escaped. The rift that her other double had inadvertently pushed the goody-two-shoes Willow through had shifted dimensions before Willowmorte could follow.  
  
***  
  
"Now listen, I don't want any trouble," Xander said to the other Immortal. "I'm just passing through."  
  
"I am Dolores Umbridge of the Ministry of Magic and this is MY school," screeched the Immortal. She waved a wand in Xander's direction. "Petrificus Totalus!"  
  
Xander suddenly found himself frozen in place unable to move. He saw Umbridge pull a machete out from her robes. Oh, this was bad. He tried to force himself to move as she approached. His hand began to creep toward his sword under is coat.  
  
"Now students," Umbridge said with faux pleantry to the onlooking crowd of kids. "This is what happens to little boys and girls when they're bad in MY school." She raised her machete to lop off Xander's head.  
  
The instant his hand gripped his katana, Xander found he could suddenly move normally. In a flash, he whipped out his sword. With the runes on the blade blazing like a row of sapphire suns, Xander's first stroke sliced through Umbridge's raised arms and the neck in between.  
  
There was shocked silence as Umbridge's body hit the ground in several pieces. Then the kids started applauding and cheering. Xander might have enjoyed it, but the Quickening intruded.  
  
***  
  
Watching the shifting realities he had caused, Dumbledore chuckled. He had hoped that the alternate version of Umbridge would take care of one of these meddlers, but seeing her head taken off was just as entertaining if not as useful.  
  
As space and time became hopeless garbled, the Headmaster decided to check on some of his other intruders.  
  
***  
  
Dementors were mostly non-corporeal demons, Buffy knew. Like ghosts, they could manipulate the material world, but the reverse wasn't true unless the dementor let it. In other words, dementors were normally immune to physical attacks.  
  
So how Buffy turned a dementor's head into so much mash with a single punch was something of a mystery. Buffy didn't have time to ponder the question. She was much too busy punching and kicking dementors away from her. A dementor's kiss could drain a person of their soul. Buffy had no intention of letting them get that close.  
  
Buffy could also feel them battering at her mind, trying to drain any happiness away. She would have laughed at their effort if she weren't so busy. She was much too old for such a trick to work on her.  
  
The dementors floated away from Buffy. At first, Buffy thought she had finally intimidated them into backing off. Around her, the corpses of a dozen dementors were evaporating away. Then she heard the voice.  
  
"Expecto Patronum!" some kid was shouting repeatedly from nearby. He was young, maybe in his early teens, and wearing glasses. He seemed to be producing a glowing wisp of fog that didn't do anything but illuminate an odd scar on his forehead. The kid stood over several unconscious people as if to defend them. Dementors surrounded them.  
  
Buffy felt an intense need to defend them. But even with her speed, there was no way she could reach them in time. But there had to be a way. Buffy WILLED for there to be a way.  
  
And then she exploded with light.  
  
An army of ghostly Slayers poured from Buffy's body. They literally tore into the ranks of the dementors. Some of the Slayers were barehanded, but most of them carried equally spectral weapons, memories of cherished possessions. Kendra had Mr. Pointy. Faith had her knife. A Slayer of the tenth century split a dementor's head with an axe. The dementors forgot their human would-be victims as they were literally swarmed and torn to shreds.  
  
Buffy barely noticed. She collapsed to her knees, shaking. Those weren't the ghosts of Slayers past out there, Buffy realized. They were the power Buffy had acquired from the Slayers that had hosted Buffy's own spirit over the millenia, shaped by the memories from the moment that Buffy's own spirit had activated their Slayer powers to the moment they had died and Buffy's spirit passed on to activate the next Slayer.  
  
They weren't ALL out there. Buffy still retained some strength, enough to keep her body alive. But most of that strength was going elsewhere. Buffy doubled over in pain as the demon Buffy thought that she had evicted from her body surged up from the dark corners of her mind. The demon had sensed weakness and was attempting to retake Buffy's body.  
  
Buffy didn't know if she had enough strength left to stop it.  
  
***  
  
"Willow! What are you doing here at Hogwarts?" squealed a twelve-year- old Dawn Summers as she tackled the older witch. "Is Buffy and Mom with you?"  
  
"Uh, hi Dawnie," Willow greeted uncertainly. "I had Buffy and Xander with me, but I seem to have lost them. Er, where are we again?"  
  
"Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, silly," Dawn said, her voice obviously annoyed at the stupidity of adults. She gestured to two boys who were with her. "These two are Harry and Ron. They're friends of mine."  
  
"Nice to meet you," Willow said to them. She saw something dark flicker out of the corner of her eye. "GET DOWN!"  
  
Dawn and her friends were suddenly flat on the floor due mostly to Willow's telekinetic push. This saved their lives as Willow's evil twin sent a blast of darkness through the space where they had been standing. Willow barely deflected the attack, sending the beam to gouge a trench in the ceiling.  
  
"Blast!" the other Willow cursed.  
  
"Yeah," Willow snarled in agreement. Any fuzzy feelings she had for her evil twin were fast disappearing. She added a word of power.  
  
BLAST.  
  
A blast of rainbow hued energy knocked Willow's evil twin off her feet. As she flew backward, the bad Willow disappeared as if moving through an invisible curtain. Surprised, Willow extended her mystical senses in an effort to locate her other self. She couldn't sense her.  
  
But she could sense the power of the Key in Dawn. And she could sense the energies of the Key elsewhere as well, radiating from what seemed to be thin air. No, it wasn't thin air. There were dimensional rifts all over the place, some radiating Key energy more than others. Willow deduced that if she followed the Key energy, she could get back to the Hogwarts that she had started at.  
  
"What was that?" demanded one of Dawn's friends.  
  
"Willow, what's going on?" Dawn asked, shaken.  
  
"My evil twin," Willow replied, stepping away. "Excuse me, but I have to go give myself a good spanking."  
  
***  
  
"Lord Voldemort?" Draco Malfoy squeaked in surprised horror.  
  
The first thing Draco saw when he had woken up was a pair of glowing red eyes. The last thing he remembered before that was Ginny Weasely hexing him with a face full of bat bogies. Although he had never personally met the Dark Lord, Draco had heard enough from his father to recognize him.  
  
Except he wasn't a him. The glowing red eyes were set in a pale white face true, but everything else was distinctly feminine. Any doubts were dispelled by the shiny black suit that hugged every curve of that womanly body.  
  
"Yes, I am in a matter of speaking," the woman said, clearly amused at Draco's confusion. "And you're Lucius Malfoy's son, Drabble, correct?"  
  
"Draco," the scion of Malfoy said automatically. He cringed when those red eyes flashed at him. "Er, Father didn't mention you were a woman, Lord."  
  
"I'll bet he didn't," she chuckled. "Now, c'mon, Drippy, I want your assistance. By the way, I've decided to get a new name since I crossed the sexual divide. Call me Lady Willowmorte."  
  
"Yes, Lo. Lady Willowmorte," Draco said fervently as Willowmorte dragged him down a corridor. When had the halls started glowing? "Er, how may I be of service?"  
  
"Well, after some of the things I've seen in some alternate realities," Willowmorte mused as they dodged a moving wall, "I'm kinda wondering how you are in bed."  
  
"Milady?" Draco squeaked. He had never imagined that serving as a Death Eater would include being the Dark Lord's - correction, Dark Lady's sex toy. Perhaps this wasn't the best time to admit that he was a virgin.  
  
"But business before pleasure, Dribble," Willowmorte continued. "We'll see how good you are if you manage to survive."  
  
"Survive?" Draco squeaked as swinging column narrowly missed them.  
  
***  
  
Xander sliced through Umbridge's neck. The woman instantly dusted, her scream cut off in mid screech. And again, the student body applauded and cheered him even though they were all vampires too.  
  
This was the seventh or eighth reality - he had lost count - Xander had stepped into. In all of them, he kept finding himself in a position of having to kill this Umbridge woman. And in all of them, the kids were glad to see her gone.  
  
"Okay, I'll be going now," he announced to the crowd.  
  
"Oh no, we must insist that you stay for dinner," said Harry Potter. Xander had learned his name a couple realities ago. Heck, he had learned most of their names in one reality or another.  
  
"Sorry," Xander replied, waving his sword in warning at the teen vampire. "I don't like being on the menu."  
  
"There's always dessert," Ginny Weasely said, her body language leaving no doubt that eating was NOT her intention.  
  
"Yes," agreed Herminone Granger. "You look so yummy."  
  
Why was it, Xander wondered, that he always attracted demony girls?  
  
"Xander," came Willow's mental voice. "Take three steps to your right."  
  
"I really have to go, girls," Xander said aloud as he obeyed Willow's instruction.  
  
"But you're our hero," Cho Chang cooed. "We just want to thank."  
  
Thankfully, she was cut off when Xander suddenly found himself in glowing green halls. He was apparently back in the dimension he had started in. Willow, his Willow was right there. She grabbed his arm.  
  
"Are you okay?" Willow asked.  
  
"Yeah," Xander said. "But the next time we see Dolores Umbridge, I'll let you kill her."  
  
"Who?" Willow said, mystified.  
  
"Never mind, she's not important," Xander replied. He looked around. "Where's Buffy?"  
  
"I don't know," Willow answered, worried. "I can't sense her mind at all."  
  
"AVADA KADAVRA!"  
  
Willow screamed as one of the zombified students in this reality snuck up and hit Xander with the curse of death.  
  
***  
  
Dumbledore laughed out loud. It was almost time. None of his enemies were even close to stopping him. The Voldemort of this reality was busy chasing Harry Potter around the Ministry of Magic, trying to get a worthless prophecy. Cornelius Fudge didn't have a clue, as Miss Summers would say. And his visitors from parallel dimensions were either befuddled by the twisted space and time or too busy hunting each other down.  
  
Looking out his office window, Dumbledore willed the newly transformed wing of the castle to rise. But it wasn't a piece of a castle anymore. It was now a giant hand made out of masonry. He flexed the fingers experimentally.  
  
Yes, Dumbledore chuckled to himself, his Ascension was at hand. 


	5. Battles to the Death

Title: Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang, Part 4  
  
By Nopporn Wongrassamee, the Evil Author  
  
"Is the sun down yet?" Spike demanded again.  
  
"Not yet," the Watcher answered again, annoyance creeping into his voice. There was all manner of fascinating phenomena occurring outside. A primitive stone castle was busy transforming itself into a humanoid mass as the space-time continuum was tearing itself to shreds. The Watcher's academic curiosity was piqued, but this undead primitive kept distracting him.  
  
"Is the sun down yet?"  
  
"Not yet."  
  
"Is the sun down yet?"  
  
"Not yet."  
  
"Is the sun down yet?"  
  
"Not yet."  
  
"Is the sun down yet?"  
  
"Yes it is!" the Watcher roared, his patience finally snapping.  
  
"Is the." Spike paused as the Time Lord's words registered. "Really?"  
  
"Yes, the planet has rotated so that this location is no longer receiving direct sunlight," the Watcher said slowly, as if to a small child.  
  
"Well, alright then," Spike said, turning to charge out through the TARDIS' outer doors. "Niblet, Spike's coming to the rescue!" With that, Spike was gone, the doors swinging shut behind him.  
  
Moments later, the Watcher heard a shriek that was abruptly cut off by the sound of rapid combustion. Then there was blessed silence. The Watcher smiled. What he had told the vampire was technically true; the inside of the TARDIS had never been in direct sunlight.  
  
***  
  
The first returning fragment was like a breath of fresh air. As each spectral memory of a past Slayer returned from bashing Dementors, they each contributed a little more strength to hold down Buffy's inner demon. When half of them had returned, Buffy felt sufficiently in control of herself to move.  
  
The returning spectral Slayers also brought something else. They added new memories, their experiences while separate from Buffy. They also told of rifts that led elsewhere. Buffy quickly deduced that she must have stumbled through one of these.  
  
Experimenting with this odd ability, Buffy released a few fragments of her self. Not many, just enough to scout the way back to the dimension Buffy had come from. Immediately, the fragments took the form of past Slayers who had been especially good trackers.  
  
Buffy was in the mood to kick something's ass.  
  
***  
  
"How." Draco began.  
  
Draco Malfoy had never really used any of the Unforgivables before, but he was confident that his Avada Kedavra had been perfect. The energy of the curse was the right shade of green. The energy bolt was neither too diffuse nor too dense. It even trailed the right amount of smoke.  
  
So why had the Muggle in black barely flinched when Draco's curse had struck him squarely in the back? Oh, the Muggle had more than fliched. He had spun around and started stalking towards Draco, waving a - to Draco's eyes anyway - huge and very sharp sword.  
  
"Y'know, I've been hit so many times with that damn spell by different versions of that Umbridge lady that I think I've developed an immunity to it," the Muggle growled at him. With his free hand, the Muggle roughly grabbed Draco by the collar of his robe and raised his sword arm. "I am getting sick and tired."  
  
"Don't hurt me!" Draco shrieked, quickly crossing his arms over his head in an attempt to protect himself,  
  
"Xander, wait!" called out the witch behind the Muggle. Except for the hair, eyes, and clothing, she bore a remarkable resemblance to Willowmorte. "He's not zombified like everyone else around here!"  
  
"Say what?" the Muggle replied in confusion. Thankfully, he hesitated from hitting Draco.  
  
A small part of Draco wondered what the witch meant by 'zombified'.  
  
"He's not being mind controlled like everyone else here," the witch said reasonably. "Maybe he could show us where Dawn is. Or at least he could tell us where to find that evil white bearded wizard guy.'  
  
Draco blinked. Who was she talking about? The only white bearded wizard he knew was Dumbledore and no one ever called that old geezer evil. Meddling, addled, even senile, but never evil.  
  
"So what's the plan, Wills?" the Muggle man asked.  
  
"Okay, we use this kid to lead us to Dawn and/or the evil Wizard," the witch said slowly, obviously making the plan up just ahead of her words. As she spoke, her words came faster. "We get Dawn back and deal with the wizard in our own special way. Oh! We also have to watch out for."  
  
"Gotcha!" interrupted Willowmorte. Appearing out of thin air behind her twin, Willowmorte wrapped her arms around the other witch's head. There was an explosion of magic that threw Draco and his assailant through the air. Before they hit the floor, the world shifted around them.  
  
***  
  
Willow screamed. Willowmorte screamed. Finally in physical contact with each other, past the other's protective shields, the two versions of Willow Rosenberg were automatically trying to drain each other of their stores of magical power. Unfortunately, both drew on ambient power sources to fuel their magics. This set up a vicious feedback loop that grew steadily stronger. A moment's slip by either one of them would result in a magical explosion that would shred what little integrity local reality still had.  
  
Willowmorte was willing to risk it.  
  
Willow Rosenberg was not.  
  
TRANSPORT.  
  
***  
  
Dumbledore sighed in relief. The brief battle between the two witches inside his remade Hogwarts had caused quite an itch. Now the two had taken their battle to another dimension. His two most dangerous opponents had just taken each other out of the picture. The ones left behind couldn't possibly be a threat.  
  
His new body was just about ready. With just a smidgen of will power, Dumbledore willed it to sit up.  
  
Hogwarts sat up.  
  
***  
  
Stepping through the last rift, Buffy finally made it back to the dimension with the glowing green castle. Only it wasn't quite a castle anymore. It was a giant made of masonry. Somewhere in there, Buffy knew, was Dawn.  
  
Buffy looked up. And up. And up. One of her spectral scouts had reported that Dawn was in the head. Now, what was the quickest way up there?  
  
Buffy put two fingers two her lips and whistled. Loudly. The glass in several windows visible on the giant's stone hide shattered at the shrill sound. The giant looked down at Buffy. Idly, Buffy noticed that the giant had a long beard that was also stone; it seemed like a waste of mass to her.  
  
"You, hey you!" Buffy called up. "You give me my sister back right now or I'll."  
  
Buffy was interrupted when the giant's hand came crashing down to squash her. She was hit squarely by the center of the palm imprinted itself deeply in the earth. Suddenly the hand jerked back into the air, as if in pain. Buffy's Scythe was stuck blade-first into the palm. Hanging on to her weapon, Buffy came up with it.  
  
***  
  
The boy, Draco, was blubbering. Xander didn't blame him. If Xander had just traipsed through a series of alternate realities where he was making out, having sex, or was otherwise being intimate with another guy, Xander would have been blubbering too.  
  
Xander wondered what huge glasses and lightning scars meant. The sight of familiar glowing green corridors wasn't enough to banish the pondering from his mind. However, the view out the window was.  
  
"Why is the horizon turned on its side?" he wondered aloud.  
  
This was enough to stop Draco from blubbering. Wiping away his tears, the young wizard gawked at the view. The line of the horizon was vertical.  
  
"Merlin! We're going to fall!" Draco said, panicking. He threw his leg over the broom he had acquired from one of his alternate selves. "I gotta get out of here!"  
  
"Whoa there, pilgrim," Xander said, grabbing the broom's tail end. "You're not going any.HEY!"  
  
With a kick of his legs, Draco was airborne. The securing charms that kept Draco seated also kept Xander attached. The two shot through the open window.  
  
***  
  
The magical explosion separated Willow and Willowmorte from each other. Although the explosion was on the scale of a nuclear explosion, the Hogwarts of this reality had already been nuked once. The additional damage did little except make the crater deeper.  
  
The wind howled as air rushed back in to fill the vacuum created by the initial explosion. The two super witches got up and squared off with each other.  
  
"Well, well, well," Willowmorte chuckled darkly. "If it isn't home sweet home."  
  
"What?" Willow shouted back in confusion.  
  
"This is my home reality, where it all started," Willowmorte shouted back. "Every living thing on this world was sacrificed, killed to empower me! Do you realize what this means?"  
  
"What?" Willow shouted again.  
  
"There's no magic left in this world to draw on!" Willowmorte told her opponent, grinning maniacally. "No magic but what we brought with us! It's down to what we have in our own personal reserves! And you expended a lot of your reserves just to get us here while I'm still almost full. You feeling lucky, girl?"  
  
"I can't hear you!" Willow shouted in reply, gesturing at her ear. "The wind's too noisy!"  
  
Willowmorte smacked the palm of her hand to her forehead. One perfectly villainous gloat had just been completely wasted. She suddenly missed having minions.  
  
"Fine, whatever," Willowmorte growled. She assumed a ready combat stance, energy crackling from her fingertips. Her double did the same. "Let's dance."  
  
***  
  
Buffy was proving to be quite a handful. Sure she easily fit between the giant's thumb and forefinger. But that didn't mean she couldn't at least make a nuisance of herself. Although in her opinion, managing to pry loose the tip of the giant's pinky made Buffy more than a nuisance.  
  
Unfortunately, this was taking too long. Buffy was not getting any closer to the head. According to her latest scouts, Dawn was fading fast. It was taking a lot f her current strength just to pry herself from between thumb and finger.  
  
Another of Buffy's spectral scouts returned, bringing news of something else, or rather, someone else. Xander was nearby, and he was flying! There was hope yet.  
  
***  
  
With some effort, Xander managed to haul himself onto the broom, sitting just behind Draco. He then noticed the direction they were heading in.  
  
"Turn us around!" Xander ordered Draco. "We gotta go back!"  
  
Draco looked back at Xander then at the castle-turn-giant behind them. "Are you mad?"  
  
"No," Xander replied, whipping out his sword. "I'm armed!"  
  
The broom promptly did a one eighty.  
  
"Do you have a plan?" Draco asked nervously.  
  
"Sure I do," Xander replied. He just didn't know what it was yet, but he wasn't going to tell the kid that.  
  
"Yo, Xandman!" a feminine voice called from nearby.  
  
Surprised, both guys turned their heads to see what appeared to be a ghost paralleling their course.  
  
"Faith?" Xander said incredulously.  
  
"Not exactly," the spectral Slayer replied with a wink. "Dawn's in the head of that thing. Follow me!" Without another word, she zipped ahead.  
  
"You heard the lady," Xander prompted his pilot. "Follow her!"  
  
They zoomed after Faith.  
  
***  
  
On a dead world, Willow and her evil twin circled each other. There had been a preliminary exchange of magics as they probed each other's defenses. Despite the fact that she couldn't hear her double, Willow was well aware that she had the inferior reserves of power and that there weren't any local sources to draw upon. Willow needed to find a power source and fast. The lack of external sources reminded Willow of her rides in the TARDIS, where she had to limit her energy intake.  
  
Willow eyes widened as she suddenly remembered that she could draw on more than just magic.  
  
Ignoring her opponent, Willow collapsed herself into a seated lotus position, complete with her eyes closed. Her senses reaching out, Willow sensed her evil twin's surprise at Willow's sudden vulnerability. She was hesitant to attack, and suspicious of being lured into a trap. It was a trap in a manner of speaking. But it was the hesitation that was costly.  
  
Willow flared with power.  
  
The ground began to shake.  
  
"How are you doing that?" Willowmorte shrieked in sudden fear and confusion. "Where are you getting the magic from?"  
  
"What, have you never thought of trying alternate energy sources?" Willow asked rhetorically. Power streamed into Willow from the deep Earth where the currents of magma and immense magnetic core held sway, untouched by the surface destruction this world had suffered. Worlds were alive in more ways than one. "Here," Willow added, "lemme show you."  
  
A crevice in the ground opened up beneath Wilowmorte's feet. Willow's evil twin fell in, her screams cut off when the crevice slammed closed. Willow felt the other's psychic signature wink out of existence.  
  
Releasing her link to this Earth, Willow breathed out heavily and shivered. No matter how necessary it seemed, killing her other self was way too creepy. But there was no time to rest. She still had to rescue Dawn.  
  
Willow wondered how Buffy and Xander were doing.  
  
***  
  
Buffy shot out from between the giant's thumb and forefinger like a watermelon seed. Unfortunately, the giant was holding her straight down at that moment. A few meters later, Buffy hit a rift.  
  
So instead of falling through the air, Buffy found herself crashing through several stone floors before coming to the stop. Getting up, Buffy looked down at herself in disgust. Her outfit was now so damaged that it was little more than a few strips of artfully placed leather rags. This whole brouhaha had started out as a shopping expedition, after all.  
  
Looking around, Buffy realized that she wasn't alone. She was in what appeared to be a classroom full of school kids. A version of her appeared to be teaching the class. Amazingly, no one had apparently been hit by flying debris. They were all - especially the boys - ogling her.  
  
Buffy pointed her Scythe at her alternate self. "Would you happen to have any clothes I could borrow?" she asked.  
  
***  
  
As they raced around the giant's head toward the face, a gang of ghosts pounced on Xander, Draco, and Faith. Magic sword or not, Xander had trouble keeping the ghosts away. Faith on the other hand was having a grand old time.  
  
"Xander! That way!" Faith cried, pointing as she severed the head of ghost whose head was already mostly cut off. "I'll keep these boys busy."  
  
"Go!" Xander told Draco while skewering a girl ghost with thick glasses. Other than pinning her to the sword, the ghost was mostly unaffected. With a flick of his wrist, Xander flung her away.  
  
"You're kidding," Draco muttered as he complied.  
  
They zoomed up a nostril.  
  
It was dark and claustrophobic. The nose hairs made from chains and multicolored banners trying to grab them didn't help. But between Draco's skillful, desperate flying and Xander's sword shearing through anything they could evade, they made it through to Dumbledore's well-lit office.  
  
They arrived traveling at around ninety miles per hour.  
  
It was a small office.  
  
The securing charms saved Draco's life, anchoring and cushioning him safely to the broom when they came to a sudden stop. Being a passenger, Xander wasn't so fortunate. He sailed through the air over Draco's head and hit the far wall with a fatal crunch.  
  
A horrified Draco looked straight into the eyes of the Headmaster. Dumbledore looked down at the broom handle impaled directly into his chest, then up to meet Draco's stare. There was a twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes.  
  
"Weren't you born as the seventh month dies, Mister Malfoy?" Dumbledore gasped. Then he expired.  
  
TO BE CONCLUDED. 


	6. Epilogue

Title: Harry Potters and the Ultimate Scooby Gang, Epilogue  
  
By Nopporn Wongrassamee, the Evil Author  
  
VOLDEMORT SLAIN, HOGWARTS DESTROYED Story by Reeta Skeeter  
  
Hogsmeade, Scotland - In a bizarre series of events yesterday, the greatest dark wizard in recent times was slain by the famous Harry Potter. Alas, this victory did not come without a high cost. As the Boy Who lived fought with Voldemort inside the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was attacked and destroyed by forces unknown. Details of both events are still sketchy as the Ministry of Magic are still investigating, but this Daily Prophet reporter has learned enough to get a general outline of events.  
In the first, Harry Potter somehow learned that Voldemort and his Death Eaters were breaking into the Ministry of magic. Potter and a small circle of his friends set out to stop them and amazingly succeeded. Potter and his friends held off double their number of Death Eaters and Voldmort himself until a crack team of Aurors could arrive on the scene. Potter himself along with the assistance classmate Neville Lotbutt fought and slew Voldemort with the Dark Lord's own wand.  
Unbeknownst to young Harry Potter and his friends, their school had come under assault by unidentified individuals who were presumably more Death Eaters. According to witnesses in the nearby wizarding village of Hogsmeade, Hogwarts was transfigured into a giant effigy of the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore and then destroyed. Miraculously, most of the staff and student body survived though they have no memories of the event except that a strange, unidentified witch somehow apparated onto the grounds and shielded them from falling debris. The only witness who could describe the attackers is unfortunately severely traumatized, his account hysterical and questionable according to sources in the Ministry.  
In addition, the entire wizarding world mourns the loss of Albus Dumbledore, a victim of this dastardly sneak attack.  
  
***  
  
"Oh, c'mon," Xander scoffed, interrupting Willow's reading of the local newspaper. "How dense are these people?"  
  
"Shh, you're making a scene," Willow replied.  
  
The gang plus Dawn were sitting in an ice cream shop. The shop itself fronted some kind of wizard's street. After some discreet questioning, Buffy had said that the place was called "Diagonal Alley" or something. The place was populated by some kind of subculture of wizards hiding from the largely nonmagical world. The school the gang had helped to inadvertently destroy was apparently part of this subculture.  
  
"Willow, the guy in charge of this Hogwarts school was an evil wizard," Xander continued in a quieter voice. "How could these people not catch on?"  
  
"I think he was like Mayor Wilkins," Willow guessed. "He had everyone fooled too. The Mayor had all the nice guy mannerisms even when he was being evil."  
  
"Also, I have some files on this Dumbledore person," the Watcher added. He was examining his ice cream sundae, more dissecting than eating it. "In most realities, he is exactly what he appears to be: the epitome of the good and wise wizard. But inevitably, there must be some realities where so-called 'Evil Twins' exist. Probability theory demands that."  
  
"Whoa there," Buffy interrupted, "hold the technobabble for someone who's interested. And stop torturing your ice cream and eat it already."  
  
"Hey, I was interested," Willow objected.  
  
"Great, then you can get some alone time with Giles." Buffy began.  
  
"I am NOT this Giles person!"  
  
".and ask him where he won't put the rest of us to sleep," Buffy continued, ignoring the Time Lord's interruption. She turned to Dawn, obviously considering the topic closed. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Um, better," Dawn replied, pausing from eating her own sundae. "This is really strange. You're Buffy, but not my Buffy."  
  
"You get used to it," Buffy told her, shrugging.  
  
"Easy for you to say," Xander grumbled, rubbing his shoulder in remembered pain. "You're not the one who's getting broken bones every time he turns around."  
  
"Whatever," Buffy said, unconcerned. "You're healthy and whole now. That's what counts." Turning back to Dawn, Buffy asked in a Big Sister tone, "And what did you learn out of all this?"  
  
"I learned not to sell myself or parts of myself to nasty wizards," Dawn answered contritely.  
  
"Good," Buffy beamed.  
  
"I'll just sell powerful magical artifacts to said nasty wizards like I did before," Dawn added. "Oh, and I'm raising my rates."  
  
Buffy scowled. She opened her mouth to object.  
  
"Right, gotta go!" Dawn said quickly. "I'm running late for a business appointment. I'll come back for Spike later. Bye!" With a flash of green light, Dawn was gone. A few of the other customers glanced their way, but people disappearing into thin air weren't all that unusual here.  
  
The rest of the gang sat there for several moments, staring at the spot where Dawn had been. Then they turned to look at the Watcher.  
  
"So, where exactly is Deadboy Junior anyway?" Xander asked.  
  
"Now that I think about it," Willow said thoughtfully, "I haven't seen him since we got back from rescuing Dawn."  
  
"Ah, yes, the vampire?" the Watcher mused. "The last I saw of this Spike, he was leaving my TARDIS on some errand or another. Far be it from me to restrain someone from leaving me in peace."  
  
"Hmm, I suppose Spike can take care of himself," Buffy added.  
  
They ate their ice cream in silence for a few moments.  
  
"Um, guys?" Willow said finally. She sounded mildly concerned.  
  
"What is it, Willow?" Xander asked.  
  
"How are we going to pay for this?" Willow asked, holding up her empty bowl. "Dawn was the only one with any local money."  
  
"Pay?" Buffy asked, as if surprised by the idea. She glanced down at her new outfit that had been 'borrowed' from an alternate version of herself.  
  
"Yes, pay," Willow confirmed. "We're supposed to be the good guys. We don't go around stealing stuff. What kind of example would we be setting for Dawn?"  
  
Grudgingly, Buffy conceded her point.  
  
"Okay, we ought to pay," Xander agreed. "Isn't this how we started? We went shopping without any money. Well here we are again. Where are we going to get some local cash?"  
  
All eyes turned to the Watcher.  
  
"Oh, no. Absolutely not," the Time Lord objected. "Besides, I don't have any local currency."  
  
"Guys, relax," Buffy said, looking out the window and across the street. "We'll simply draw money out of my bank account."  
  
"But wouldn't any bank account that you have be in another dimension?" Willow asked, confused.  
  
"Yeah, but I know a middleman who can get me access," Buffy said cheerfully, still staring across the street.  
  
Curious, the others turned to see what Buffy was looking at. There across the street was a sign emblazoned: WOLFRAM & HART, LEGAL SERVICES  
  
***  
  
Worlds away, in a reality where a world had died under and exchange of magical and nuclear fire, something stirred. Beside a freshly closed crevice, dirt was pushed aside as a feminine figure in tattered clothing dug herself out of the ground.  
Her eyes blazing in fury and hatred, Willowmorte vowed revenge on her other self. She had depleted all her power reserves saving herself from her double's attack. That very depletion had apparently fooled her good double into thinking that Willowmorte was dead. That, Willowmorte decided, would let her get her revenge on Willow Rosenberg. All she needed was a little magic.  
.in a world where there was no magic. Everything was dead here by her hand. There was nothing living from which to drain energy. Willowmorte had already consumed everything. There was nothing left.  
Willowmorte was stuck here. Alone.  
  
***  
  
Harry Potter looked over the remains of what had felt like his home for the past five years. Hogwarts had been more of a home to him than the Dursleys' had ever been. Now it was just a pile of rubble. Any elation his victory over Voldemort had given him had been instantly squelched by the news of the school's destruction.  
  
Wandering among the debris, a slow fury came over Harry. Someone had come and destroyed his school, his home. Someone had killed Albus Dumbledore, his mentor. And the Ministry had no idea who had done this. Looking at the ruins of his life, Harry vowed to hunt down those responsible and make them pay.  
  
A golden glint caught his eye.  
  
Bending down, Harry plucked a shiny gold ring from the dust. It was an exquisite design. Someone had engraved some kind of writing on the inner surface. This ring, Harry decided, would serve as a reminder of what he had lost and sought to avenge: something Precious. 


End file.
